Canzano: Trail Blazers' next target needs to be bigger than Wesley Matthews

The Associated PressThe Utah Jazz have until July 19 to decide whether to match Portland's contract offer to Wesley Matthews, center.

Should the Trail Blazers be successful in their bid to win the $34 million mid-level sweepstakes for free agent guard Wesley Matthews this week, it will mark a small victory for an organization that desperately needs one.

It's a win, but it won't make Portland a contender.

Utah has until next Monday to decide whether to match the offer sheet prepared by the Blazers, and Matthews is a very respectable NBA player. The move would make Portland deeper, tougher, better. But if we're talking about the franchise working its way into deep-playoff relevancy, then Andre Miller and Joel Przybilla need to be traded.

Welcome to the "now-the-good-guys-gotta-go" era of Blazers basketball.

Miller and Pryzbilla have both conducted themselves professionally, worked hard, and given the Blazers a fair shake. But we've reached the point where their contracts are too valuable to hold onto, and the ability to trade $14.4 million in expiring combined contracts ends up as Portland's big move.

In the last eight years we've watched the Blazers unsuccessfully shop the expiring contracts of Arvydas Sabonis, Nick Van Exel, Damon Stoudamire, Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Raef LaFrentz. Which is only to say that all the evidence points to the Blazers letting Miller and Przybilla walk away, taking the payroll savings themselves.

That can't happen this time.

Portland gave LaMarcus Aldridge a $60 million extension. Brandon Roy received a maximum contract himself. Those two players, along with the holdovers and draft picks leave the Blazers maxed out on what they can do salary-wise, sitting on the outside of free agency.

Matthews was available to Portland only because they can use the mid-level exception to the salary cap, front load the deal to make it difficult to match, and pray Utah doesn't match. And so while LeBron goes to Miami and the Lakers sign Steve Blake and retain Derek Fisher and Phoenix trades for Hedo Turkoglu, the emphasis for Portland has to be on trading Miller and Przybilla or risk being left behind.

There's a market for those guys. Przybilla, coming off a ruptured patellar tendon, might be enticed with the idea of being bought out immediately. Miller still has enough left to help a contender. But what Portland can't do is wait until February's trade deadline, overplay their hand, and end up diminishing the possibility of landing a star player.

That's what $14.4 million buys today.

Chris Paul anyone?

Of course, we know the Blazers pursued the New Orleans guard in recent weeks. That deal reportedly went as far as including young players such as Nicolas Batum and Jerryd Bayless. And if those discussions have stalled, Portland needs to get active in seeing what other star players might be available.

That's the most troubling part of the gaping hole in the front office. The Blazers are operating without a general manager. And while scouts and the team president can certainly make calls, Portland lacks an experienced, well-connected decision maker. And that's exactly what it's going to take to get this done.

Ugh, right?

We're watching the Blazers interview candidates, and the days of summer are bleeding out. The Heat got better. The Knicks got better. The Bulls got better. The Eastern Conference is loading up, the Lakers added depth, the Suns and Warriors are trying, and I'm left wondering if Portland understands it's about to be left behind.

The Blazers feel a lot like an ambitious race-car operation that has neither a fully-functioning car, nor a driver, nor a mechanic capable of fixing the vehicle.

So what do they have right now aside from a flimsy plan?

Hire a GM. Trade Miller/Przybilla for a star player who can join Roy and Aldridge. Start the season.

Allen's team of advisors at Vulcan Inc. are not basketball people. They're numbers driven. And I suspect they'll view the notion of a couple of expiring contracts as if they were more valuable than a single star player. But it's the idea of an expiring opportunity that troubles me.